How are things out there at the end of the century? Did our government's financial bailout plan work out all right? Have you finally achieved peace in the Middle East? How's it coming with global warming and energy independence? Have the Cubs managed to win a World Series?

I thought you might be interested in what financial advisors are thinking and feeling and saying to their clients during a traumatic time in the world economy. You've probably seen some of these financial train wrecks in history videos on YouTube: the soup lines of the Great Depression, stagflation and oil shocks during the 1970s, Black Monday in 1987 and the Tech Wreck that started in March of 2000 and was made worse by 9/11 the following year.

I'm a firsthand witness to those last two fiascoes, and now we're going through a third in my short career, something we call the Subprime Crisis (though I'm hoping that future historians will come up with a better name). From where we sit, watching history swirl around us in the usual confusing images, it looks like we're plagued by exactly the same root cause as every other economic catastrophe: a fundamental loss of faith. Our financial systems work pretty well when everybody believes that they'll get their money back when they lend it, that the pieces of paper we call currency really do represent value, that most companies will grow and that the future is generally bright.

But then something scary and unexpected happens, and—like a startled herd of buffalo—members of the general public throw their faith out the window and stampede for the exits. This much you know. But I can tell you, here in the middle of the stampede, the picture isn't pretty. You learn that we humans are, fundamentally, herd animals; we all like to move in the same direction in a crowd, even if the direction appears to be randomly selected, even if the general movement is toward a cliff.

In the planning profession, these periodic meltdowns have been, in retrospect, important times of growth, evolution and learning. After Black Monday, for instance, after larger institutions had sold a failed strategy called "portfolio insurance," our profession evolved from a sales model to advice, and the public discovered the value of an impartial, professional counselor during times of crisis. During the collapse of the tech sector, when large institutional firms were caught offering bogus analyst recommendations and bribing clients with IPO shares, the public learned the virtues of diversification, and the profession rediscovered the value of a full-service financial planning engagement.

Today, at a time when large institutions have sold-out of their own portfolios, often to their retail clients-many billions and perhaps trillions of dollars' worth of mispriced and mislabeled securities, layered with almost unbelievable amounts of leverage, the most honest thing I can say is that we don't know what to expect. We have no idea whether the crisis will play out through a recession, another bout of stagflation or whether suddenly, before anyone has time to react, the markets will soar and reward those investors who kept the faith. After a lost decade of returns, we could be looking at another 10 years of misery or the genesis of the next great bull market.

Not knowing these things is part of our professional responsibility; disclosing that we don't know them is a big part of our integrity.

Simple Things of Value

But here in the center of the whirlwind, amid all the uncertainty and panic, I can report that our profession is realizing that a big part of our value lies in simple things that we normally take for granted. Recently, for example, Carol Van Bruggen volunteered to take phone calls for a TV station in her local Sacramento, Calif. area. "From 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. eight of us spoke to more than 100 frightened individuals who had no financial advisor they trusted to help them make decisions," she says. "It was an emotional eye opener for me. In my experience, my clients have me talk them through these scary times; someone who knows their needs, resources and goals intimately."

One woman told her: "I was so scared I didn't know if I should sell everything and hide it under a mattress. I now feel I can sleep tonight." Another man asked if the station could bring back this group of advisors every day to talk about finances and help people make decisions. "He felt the whole market would be much calmer if everyone had a financial planner," Van Bruggen says.